Super 14 Rugby?

Question

All Black coach Graham Henry plans to rest 22 of his All Blacks for the first 7 weeks of super 14 rugby. Do you think the New Zealand super 14 teams will struggle without these players or do you think they have enough quality backup players to carry them through to yet another New Zealand super 14 title?

Answer 1

Newzealand teams tend to have strength in depth so i do not think it will matter that much

Answer 2

Obviously part of it will depend on the draw. If the first few rounds  for the Canes and Crusaders are against the lower ranked teams, then it won't really matter so much. If it is against the top South African and Australian sides then yes, some games will probably miss on a bonus point or will end in a loss for the NZ teams which will result in a few less points on the table at the end of the competition. Since this is half of the season he plans this for, I personally don't think it will do the NZers any favours at all and hopefully he revises this to a couple of weeks if anything.

Answer 3

I'm kind of glad about it becasue it'll give a lot of players who are usually benchwarmers the chance to ply. It'll also make the coaches think of more combinatioms to try out and therefor will make the game more interesting.

Answer 4

i think dey will struggle especially d crusaders

bt d lower teams such as waikato chiefs might be gud

Answer 5

I think they will struggle a bit but they probably don't care, Super 14 compared to the World Cup, they will choose the world Cup. I personally think it is ridiculous to rest 22 players but I guess Im not Henry so yeah, lol. I really want the Tahs' to win though, they are my team although I am a Queenslander lol! GO THE TAHS!

Peace

-wallabies!

Answer 6

I think next year's super 14 will be extremely interesting to watch.  I agree with someone's comments (Grant Fox?) that because the 'playing field' has been levelled, the competition will be a lot closer.

In order to try and pick how teams will be affected by their loss of All Blacks, it's interesting to look at which teams are doing well in the Air New Zealand Cup.

http://www.allblacks.com/airnewzealandcu...

The top six teams are all 'franchise' super 14 teams, except for North Harbour who sit in second place.

Canterbury sit in 5th place, and the board is almost an inversion of the final placing of the NZ teams in the Super 14 (2006):

So, what am I saying?  I'm saying that it may be the blue's year in the super 14.

The blues will lose Kevin Mealamu, Ali Williams, Tony Woodcock and Joe Rokocoko.

With the depth in the Auckland and North Harbour ANC teams this year, these will easily be replaced, while other teams may suffer.

Maybe it's a good year to buy a season pass to Eden Park.

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My Blog:

http://www.peteandmegan.com

Answer 7

New Zealand has never been short of quality players, but the Crusaders and the Hurricanes are going to have problems. They might scrape by, but it won't be the same and they're likely to get walked all over.

I don't think the international players will rest anyway, they'll probably turn up at lesser clubs and play as A.N.Other like they used to do here (or perhaps they still do it).

Answer 8

good